Petr
11-21-2005, 06:55 PM
Once again, I had to cut out the endnotes to make room for this essay! 25,000 characters-upper limit stinks! :mad: :p
This is intellectually provocative stuff!
:smile:
More material on the vital Christian contribution in the origin of modern science in here:
http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20845&highlight=needham
http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14949&highlight=needham
http://www.biblicalchristianworldview.net/Incarnation-Modern-Science.html
The Incarnation and Modern Science
© 2001 by James Nickel
This essay first appeared in The Chalcedon Report (September 2001) and is reprinted with permission.
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end ...1
Axioms, or Laws of Motion – Law 1: Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.2
In the 20th century, God blessed the Catholic3 Church with many men; each called into the kingdom for such a time and each performing a unique service for the kingdom. I want to note three men in particular (primarily because of their impact on my life and thinking). Two men are familiar to the readers of this publication, Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) and Rousas John Rushdoony (1916-2001). I never met Dr. Van Til, but I had the extraordinary privilege of personally interacting with Dr. Rushdoony on several occasions. Both men strongly embraced historical, orthodox Christianity in its distinctive Reformation thrust. Van Til brought to the plate presuppositional analysis based upon the self-authenticating nature of Scripture and the transcendental argument for the existence of God. Based upon Van Til’s devastating critique of human autonomy, Rushdoony exposed 20th century Christendom to a full-orbed and comprehensive faith in his application of the whole Word of God to every sphere of life.
An Assessment of Jaki
The third man may be unknown to some readers of this publication simply because he is a fully committed Roman Catholic. His name is Stanley L. Jaki (1924-), a Hungarian-born Benedictine priest holding two Ph.D. degrees (one in systematic theology and the other in nuclear physics). In the past 35 years, he has written close to 60 books/booklets and a multitude of scholarly essays. His area of expertise, of which this essay will attempt to explicate and of which those of the Protestant tradition must thoroughly grasp, is the history of science and its relationship to foundational Christian tenets.4 I first read Jaki in 1986. I have since attempted to read everything he has written (I’m batting about .600 in that regard). I have also had the privilege of talking to the incredibly gracious Dr. Jaki via telephone and letter.
Reading Jaki is pure delight (even when he throws jabs at Protestants5). The man is adeptly “at home” with the English language (plus six others). He has a formidable grasp of Roman Catholic theology,6 science, and philosophy.7 His reading of history is extensive and his capacity for sustained scholarly work is awe-inspiring.8 In befits us, as heirs of the Reformed tradition, to be “catholic” in our spirit with respect to Jaki. We certainly disagree with his understanding of the true nature of Catholicism and personal salvation.9 We would also disagree with his scorn of Creation Science.10 We certainly can sit at his feet and learn from his insightful and masterful analysis of the conceptual development of modern science.
In the modern world, many meanings have been affixed to the word “science.” I am taking the meaning of this word as it was understood in the 17th century (Newton’s time). To Newton and his compatriots, science (or more specifically, physics) meant the study of motion in all of its forms (e.g., motion of the moon, projectile motion, free-fall motion, motion of sound waves, motion of light waves, motion of heat, etc.). To simplify matters, the first law of motion (also called the law of inertia or the theory of impetus) is the inaugurating conception for the enterprise that we now call modern science.11
Duhem’s Medieval “Treasure Hunt”
The importance of Stanley Jaki’s historical work is in his calling to our attention the scientific investigations of the French theoretical physicist, Pierre Duhem (1861-1916).12 In his day, Duhem was the world authority on chemical thermodynamics (the study of the motion of heat). As part of his study, Duhem sought to understand the historical development of the science of dynamics.13 He assumed that he would start with the mechanical theories of Archimedes (ca. 287-212 BC) and “long jump” two millennia to the dynamical theories of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). He would have ignored these 1,800 years would it not have been for his study, initiated around 1904, of the immediate antecedents of Galileo. Those predecessors made obscure references to a 13th century individual by the name of Jordanus.14 Jordanus and his school developed a number of significant and “modern” mechanical ideas. One has been called the “axiom of Jordanus.” It states that the motive power which can lift a given weight a certain height can lift a weight x times heavier to 1/x times the height. This is the germ of the modern scientific principle of virtual displacements or virtual velocities.15
Duhem’s interest was piqued. He began to meticulously ransack medieval manuscripts, most written in a form of Latin shorthand that varied from region to region.16 He discovered that Jordanus was part of the Sorbonne (founded in 1257), a building attached to the University of Paris, one of the premier medieval universities. And, to his utmost surprise, Duhem discovered an accurate articulation of Newton’s first law of motion in two other Sorbonne professors, Jean Buridan (1300-1358) and Nicole Oresme (ca. 1323-1382).17 Buridan is generally given passing note in the history of philosophy (e.g., Buridan’s ass). In these two men, obscure in Duhem’s time (and, unfortunately, still significantly obscure in our time), he discovered scientific genius. But, even more unanticipated by Duhem, he discovered that this historical breakthrough was predicated by a belief in and application of historic Christian creeds.
Aristotelian Motion
It was during the 13th and 14th centuries that the Greek scientific corpus, primarily the works of Aristotle (384-322 BC), found their way into the purview of medieval scholastics (via the agency of Arabic scholars). To Aristotle, the universe was uncreated and eternal (time being understood as cyclical in nature18). Buridan and his fellow Christian scholars, including Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), rejected this thesis as unbiblical and not in accord with Christian tenets, i.e., that God the Father Almighty created the universe “in the beginning” (time being understood as linear in nature19). To a Christian, the universe is created and finite. Buridan, possessing keen scientific inquisitiveness, did not put a period at the end of “the universe is created and finite” sentence (as Aquinas did). He considered the answer to the following question, “How, physically, did the motion of the universe start?” He first took a deep look at Aristotle’s theory of motion.
Aristotle’s theory of motion was lashed to his a priori (and deterministic) pantheistic emanationism. According to Aristotle, the universe consisted, as you recall the Greek geocentric arrangement, of a series of concentric, crystalline spheres with the Earth at the center. The universe moved because its highest sphere, the sphere of the fixed stars, was in a sort of “contact” with a “divine motor” that Aristotle called the “Unmoved or Prime Mover.” As Aristotle stated, it was through eternal contact with this “undefined” Prime Mover that the universe continued in its eternal motion (or rotation). Aristotle also pronounced (again a priori) that the celestial spheres reflected perfect motion. To him (and to the rest of his Greek collaborators), the circle is perfection and the heavenly rotations reflect perfect circular motion. Motion on the terrestrial realm, i.e., the Earth, being at the farthest point from the perfect motive power (or emanation) of the Prime Mover was, by its distance from the source of that emanation, imperfect (or, in the state of partial disorder). No coherent or universal law, therefore, could unite motion celestial with motion terrestrial. Also, the Greeks had a name for their conception of the universe; they called it monogenes (the only-begotten).20
Fruitful Reflections
Buridan and Oresme presupposed, based upon biblical revelation, an absolute beginning for physical motion. To them, the universe was distinct from its Creator. To assume the contact that Aristotle postulated was, to them, pantheism (i.e., the universe, in its contact with the Prime Mover, was intimately connected to and part of that Source of movement). Buridan then asked, “If the universe is distinct from its Creator, then how do we account for the movements of the celestial orbs?” At this point, Buridan’s genius came into play, a genius motivated consciously by his belief in the tenets of the Christian God. He stated that at the moment of creation, God imparted motion to the universe and in that motion He established general influences (ordinances) that governed its continued motion. He said:
When God created the world, He moved each of the celestial orbs as He pleased, and in moving them He impressed in them impetuses which moved them without His having to move them any more except by the method of general influence whereby He concurs as a co-agent in all things which take place; ... these impetuses which He impressed in the celestial bodies were not decreased nor corrupted afterward, because there was no resistance which would be corruptive or repressive of that impetus.21
Note three momentous and crucial features nested in these few sentences. First, note the equivalence with Newton’s first law of motion.22 Since Newton’s first law forms the basis of his second and third laws of motion, then, in Buridan’s statement, we have encapsulated before us the very foundation of modern physics.23 All of us know that modern physics impacts the entirety of modern technological life. Few of us know, and thanks to Duhem and Jaki, we no longer have any excuse for not knowing, the medieval and Christian basis for such modernity.
Second, Buridan’s statement engenders the consideration of how the “general influence of God whereby He concurs as a co-agent in all things which take place” works out in practice. In other words, Buridan is stating that the universe is coherent and that its law-like interactions can be studied and discovered. God’s created order acts in a consistent fashion, so consistent the man can put “mathematical equations” to it. It is this consistency that serves as a basic presupposition (and, I might add, this presupposition is Christian in nature) for all research scientists.
Consistency in the interactions of God’s created order due to His faithful rule leads us to the third point. We can quantify these motions (that is just what Oresme, Buridan’s successor, attempted to do).24 In Oresme, we find the notion of a mathematical function (e.g., heat vs. time, distance an object falls vs. time).25 It is important to also note that another medieval invention, the mechanical clock, providentially came onto the scene simultaneously with Buridan and Oresme.26 The mechanical clock combined with Oresme’s seminal functional concepts enabled scientists to “time” motion activities that no one had ever thought of timing before. The medieval mechanical clock also provided the quantitative precision needed for the birth and growth of modern science. The theory of impetus combined with mathematical functions provided the foundation for the one of the most important mathematical formulations ever and Newton played a key role in its initial articulation.27 I am speaking of the differential and integral calculus, i.e., the “mathematics of motion” that serves as the rigging of the ship of science.28
The “Sacred” Cliché
This medieval presentiment of Newton’s first law of motion, founded upon Christian creeds and unearthed initially by Duhem a century ago, rings “hollow” in the modern world of academe and science.29 This vacuousness should not come as a surprise. The French Enlightenment, led by the French philosopher François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778), launched salvo after salvo of propaganda, each burst exploding into the myth that science and revealed religion (i.e., the Christian Faith) were in an irreconcilable conflict.30 Needless to say, Duhem, a French Roman Catholic, upset the cart and the horse of this hallowed cliché. Duhem’s exposé is why, at the behest of certain elements of the French government, the last five volumes of his Systéme du monde were shelved.31 It was not until the early 1950s, some 38+ years after Duhem’s death, that these manuscripts saw the light of day owing to the incredibly heroic persistence of Duhem’s daughter, Hélène.32
False Starts
Duhem showed that physical science could not be contrary to the Christian Faith because it owed its very birth to that Faith. As Jaki has so elegantly revealed, science was stillborn in every ancient culture.33 In spite of some promising starts, science failed to emerge. For example, consider the decimal system (base 10) of numeration, a Hindu invention, and Euclidean Geometry, the glory of Greek deductive genius. Yet, neither was science; neither gave a handle to dealing with things in motion, the very crux of modern science. All these stillbirths – whether Indian, Babylonian, Mayan, Egyptian, Chinese, or Greek – can be traced to a faulty view of the universe. Each of these cultures embraced an organismic view of the cosmos, a view that fathomed all things in pantheistic terms as an eternal begetting (Greek: monogenes) of a divine absolute or logos (Greek for “reason”), starting from the celestial realm and emanating into the “partial disorder” of the terrestrial.34
There was one culture that got a handle on dealing with things in motion and that culture embraced and believed in a babe born in Bethlehem. This babe, according to Christian creeds, was the only-begotten (Greek: monogenes) Son of God (John 1:18). This babe was also the Logos of God (John 1:1), a Logos that was God manifested in the flesh (John 1:14). Any Greek philosopher, reading these words of the Apostle John, would not have missed this affront to pantheistic emanationism.
This challenge was based upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Logos, revealed in Scripture and in Christian creeds as fully God (very God of very God) and fully man (incarnate of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary). The theological ramifications of the revelation of God in Christ were hammered out initially by the early councils of the Church.35 The preciseness of these statements, in time, had far-reaching consequences.
Impact of the Incarnation
Rome eventually fell and the Christian West began its pioneering struggles. The followers of Christ eventually reconstructed a barbarian world making it a Christian civilization (although with faults). It was when this Christian civilization gained full access to the Greek philosophical and scientific corpus that the impact of Christ on science began to unfold.
The universe to the Christian West was a Christ-ruled universe. It was in no way an “emanation from a divine motor.” It was free from vague organismic or animistic influences (the source of a multitude of disorderly processes). This universe was ordered in accord with God’s faithful decrees (Job 38:33; Psalm 148:1-6; Jeremiah 31:35-36). Only in this universe could motion be understood properly; i.e., the conservation of momentum and where free fall was truly “free” and not governed by Aristotle’s “desire-driven” machinations.36 As we have seen, the law of inertial motion was first formulated in reference to the biblical God, the Creator of that motion, who, in the beginning, made all things in and through Christ (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16).
The createdness of all things in and through a person, the Logos of God, proved to be a certain assurance that all things cohere in their Creator (Colossians 1:17). All His works reflect a coherent wisdom because the Logos of God is also the Wisdom of God (Proverbs 8:12-36; I Corinthians 1:24; Colossians 2:3). Athanasius (ca. 293-373), who stood contra mundum (against the world) of Arian heresy (that purported Christ as not being fully God), recognized the significance of a fully rational and wise God creating a fully rational and good (interconnected and interacting) creation.37 After citing John 1:1, Athanasius described the universe as a divine hymn:
... so also the Wisdom of God, handling the universe as a lyre; ... in combining parts into wholes ... produces well and fittingly, as the result, the unity of the universe and of its order ... and He produces as the result a marvelous and truly divine harmony.38
The divine harmony of Athanasius differs antithetically (at the root level) with the Pythagorean “harmony of the spheres.” To Pythagoras (ca. 582-ca. 500 BC) and the rest of the pantheon of Greek philosophers, this harmony was not the reflection of a personal, rational Creator revealed in the flesh as the only-begotten Son of God. Although Athanasius was contra mundum (against the world of error), he was pro universo (for the universe). He was pro universo because Christ holds the universe together in His wisdom and by His power. It is this revelation of Christ, the Incarnate Christ, that is the only valid ground for a totally rational and harmonious universe, an orchestral hymn linking the realm of the celestial with the realm of the terrestrial. Contra Aristotle, who denied that any coherent law could unite these two realms, the Christian West, founded upon the reality of the Incarnation of Christ, could embrace such a union. And it eventually did in the person of Isaac Newton for he breathed deeply of such a Christian consensus, in spite of his own latent Arianism, in an English scientific atmosphere commanded by Puritan theology. This “air of truth” provided the foundation for Newton’s confidence that he could connect the falling of an apple with the motion of the moon. He made this connection mathematically in his inverse-square law39, better known as the law of universal gravitation (one law connecting two diverse realms, motion celestial with motion terrestrial).
This science of motion could not be born until the babe born in Bethlehem made His impact, until His light of truth dispelled the darkness of error. This Christ, in the fullest sense of the term, is truly the Savior of science.
Endnotes:
This is intellectually provocative stuff!
:smile:
More material on the vital Christian contribution in the origin of modern science in here:
http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20845&highlight=needham
http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14949&highlight=needham
http://www.biblicalchristianworldview.net/Incarnation-Modern-Science.html
The Incarnation and Modern Science
© 2001 by James Nickel
This essay first appeared in The Chalcedon Report (September 2001) and is reprinted with permission.
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end ...1
Axioms, or Laws of Motion – Law 1: Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.2
In the 20th century, God blessed the Catholic3 Church with many men; each called into the kingdom for such a time and each performing a unique service for the kingdom. I want to note three men in particular (primarily because of their impact on my life and thinking). Two men are familiar to the readers of this publication, Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) and Rousas John Rushdoony (1916-2001). I never met Dr. Van Til, but I had the extraordinary privilege of personally interacting with Dr. Rushdoony on several occasions. Both men strongly embraced historical, orthodox Christianity in its distinctive Reformation thrust. Van Til brought to the plate presuppositional analysis based upon the self-authenticating nature of Scripture and the transcendental argument for the existence of God. Based upon Van Til’s devastating critique of human autonomy, Rushdoony exposed 20th century Christendom to a full-orbed and comprehensive faith in his application of the whole Word of God to every sphere of life.
An Assessment of Jaki
The third man may be unknown to some readers of this publication simply because he is a fully committed Roman Catholic. His name is Stanley L. Jaki (1924-), a Hungarian-born Benedictine priest holding two Ph.D. degrees (one in systematic theology and the other in nuclear physics). In the past 35 years, he has written close to 60 books/booklets and a multitude of scholarly essays. His area of expertise, of which this essay will attempt to explicate and of which those of the Protestant tradition must thoroughly grasp, is the history of science and its relationship to foundational Christian tenets.4 I first read Jaki in 1986. I have since attempted to read everything he has written (I’m batting about .600 in that regard). I have also had the privilege of talking to the incredibly gracious Dr. Jaki via telephone and letter.
Reading Jaki is pure delight (even when he throws jabs at Protestants5). The man is adeptly “at home” with the English language (plus six others). He has a formidable grasp of Roman Catholic theology,6 science, and philosophy.7 His reading of history is extensive and his capacity for sustained scholarly work is awe-inspiring.8 In befits us, as heirs of the Reformed tradition, to be “catholic” in our spirit with respect to Jaki. We certainly disagree with his understanding of the true nature of Catholicism and personal salvation.9 We would also disagree with his scorn of Creation Science.10 We certainly can sit at his feet and learn from his insightful and masterful analysis of the conceptual development of modern science.
In the modern world, many meanings have been affixed to the word “science.” I am taking the meaning of this word as it was understood in the 17th century (Newton’s time). To Newton and his compatriots, science (or more specifically, physics) meant the study of motion in all of its forms (e.g., motion of the moon, projectile motion, free-fall motion, motion of sound waves, motion of light waves, motion of heat, etc.). To simplify matters, the first law of motion (also called the law of inertia or the theory of impetus) is the inaugurating conception for the enterprise that we now call modern science.11
Duhem’s Medieval “Treasure Hunt”
The importance of Stanley Jaki’s historical work is in his calling to our attention the scientific investigations of the French theoretical physicist, Pierre Duhem (1861-1916).12 In his day, Duhem was the world authority on chemical thermodynamics (the study of the motion of heat). As part of his study, Duhem sought to understand the historical development of the science of dynamics.13 He assumed that he would start with the mechanical theories of Archimedes (ca. 287-212 BC) and “long jump” two millennia to the dynamical theories of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). He would have ignored these 1,800 years would it not have been for his study, initiated around 1904, of the immediate antecedents of Galileo. Those predecessors made obscure references to a 13th century individual by the name of Jordanus.14 Jordanus and his school developed a number of significant and “modern” mechanical ideas. One has been called the “axiom of Jordanus.” It states that the motive power which can lift a given weight a certain height can lift a weight x times heavier to 1/x times the height. This is the germ of the modern scientific principle of virtual displacements or virtual velocities.15
Duhem’s interest was piqued. He began to meticulously ransack medieval manuscripts, most written in a form of Latin shorthand that varied from region to region.16 He discovered that Jordanus was part of the Sorbonne (founded in 1257), a building attached to the University of Paris, one of the premier medieval universities. And, to his utmost surprise, Duhem discovered an accurate articulation of Newton’s first law of motion in two other Sorbonne professors, Jean Buridan (1300-1358) and Nicole Oresme (ca. 1323-1382).17 Buridan is generally given passing note in the history of philosophy (e.g., Buridan’s ass). In these two men, obscure in Duhem’s time (and, unfortunately, still significantly obscure in our time), he discovered scientific genius. But, even more unanticipated by Duhem, he discovered that this historical breakthrough was predicated by a belief in and application of historic Christian creeds.
Aristotelian Motion
It was during the 13th and 14th centuries that the Greek scientific corpus, primarily the works of Aristotle (384-322 BC), found their way into the purview of medieval scholastics (via the agency of Arabic scholars). To Aristotle, the universe was uncreated and eternal (time being understood as cyclical in nature18). Buridan and his fellow Christian scholars, including Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), rejected this thesis as unbiblical and not in accord with Christian tenets, i.e., that God the Father Almighty created the universe “in the beginning” (time being understood as linear in nature19). To a Christian, the universe is created and finite. Buridan, possessing keen scientific inquisitiveness, did not put a period at the end of “the universe is created and finite” sentence (as Aquinas did). He considered the answer to the following question, “How, physically, did the motion of the universe start?” He first took a deep look at Aristotle’s theory of motion.
Aristotle’s theory of motion was lashed to his a priori (and deterministic) pantheistic emanationism. According to Aristotle, the universe consisted, as you recall the Greek geocentric arrangement, of a series of concentric, crystalline spheres with the Earth at the center. The universe moved because its highest sphere, the sphere of the fixed stars, was in a sort of “contact” with a “divine motor” that Aristotle called the “Unmoved or Prime Mover.” As Aristotle stated, it was through eternal contact with this “undefined” Prime Mover that the universe continued in its eternal motion (or rotation). Aristotle also pronounced (again a priori) that the celestial spheres reflected perfect motion. To him (and to the rest of his Greek collaborators), the circle is perfection and the heavenly rotations reflect perfect circular motion. Motion on the terrestrial realm, i.e., the Earth, being at the farthest point from the perfect motive power (or emanation) of the Prime Mover was, by its distance from the source of that emanation, imperfect (or, in the state of partial disorder). No coherent or universal law, therefore, could unite motion celestial with motion terrestrial. Also, the Greeks had a name for their conception of the universe; they called it monogenes (the only-begotten).20
Fruitful Reflections
Buridan and Oresme presupposed, based upon biblical revelation, an absolute beginning for physical motion. To them, the universe was distinct from its Creator. To assume the contact that Aristotle postulated was, to them, pantheism (i.e., the universe, in its contact with the Prime Mover, was intimately connected to and part of that Source of movement). Buridan then asked, “If the universe is distinct from its Creator, then how do we account for the movements of the celestial orbs?” At this point, Buridan’s genius came into play, a genius motivated consciously by his belief in the tenets of the Christian God. He stated that at the moment of creation, God imparted motion to the universe and in that motion He established general influences (ordinances) that governed its continued motion. He said:
When God created the world, He moved each of the celestial orbs as He pleased, and in moving them He impressed in them impetuses which moved them without His having to move them any more except by the method of general influence whereby He concurs as a co-agent in all things which take place; ... these impetuses which He impressed in the celestial bodies were not decreased nor corrupted afterward, because there was no resistance which would be corruptive or repressive of that impetus.21
Note three momentous and crucial features nested in these few sentences. First, note the equivalence with Newton’s first law of motion.22 Since Newton’s first law forms the basis of his second and third laws of motion, then, in Buridan’s statement, we have encapsulated before us the very foundation of modern physics.23 All of us know that modern physics impacts the entirety of modern technological life. Few of us know, and thanks to Duhem and Jaki, we no longer have any excuse for not knowing, the medieval and Christian basis for such modernity.
Second, Buridan’s statement engenders the consideration of how the “general influence of God whereby He concurs as a co-agent in all things which take place” works out in practice. In other words, Buridan is stating that the universe is coherent and that its law-like interactions can be studied and discovered. God’s created order acts in a consistent fashion, so consistent the man can put “mathematical equations” to it. It is this consistency that serves as a basic presupposition (and, I might add, this presupposition is Christian in nature) for all research scientists.
Consistency in the interactions of God’s created order due to His faithful rule leads us to the third point. We can quantify these motions (that is just what Oresme, Buridan’s successor, attempted to do).24 In Oresme, we find the notion of a mathematical function (e.g., heat vs. time, distance an object falls vs. time).25 It is important to also note that another medieval invention, the mechanical clock, providentially came onto the scene simultaneously with Buridan and Oresme.26 The mechanical clock combined with Oresme’s seminal functional concepts enabled scientists to “time” motion activities that no one had ever thought of timing before. The medieval mechanical clock also provided the quantitative precision needed for the birth and growth of modern science. The theory of impetus combined with mathematical functions provided the foundation for the one of the most important mathematical formulations ever and Newton played a key role in its initial articulation.27 I am speaking of the differential and integral calculus, i.e., the “mathematics of motion” that serves as the rigging of the ship of science.28
The “Sacred” Cliché
This medieval presentiment of Newton’s first law of motion, founded upon Christian creeds and unearthed initially by Duhem a century ago, rings “hollow” in the modern world of academe and science.29 This vacuousness should not come as a surprise. The French Enlightenment, led by the French philosopher François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778), launched salvo after salvo of propaganda, each burst exploding into the myth that science and revealed religion (i.e., the Christian Faith) were in an irreconcilable conflict.30 Needless to say, Duhem, a French Roman Catholic, upset the cart and the horse of this hallowed cliché. Duhem’s exposé is why, at the behest of certain elements of the French government, the last five volumes of his Systéme du monde were shelved.31 It was not until the early 1950s, some 38+ years after Duhem’s death, that these manuscripts saw the light of day owing to the incredibly heroic persistence of Duhem’s daughter, Hélène.32
False Starts
Duhem showed that physical science could not be contrary to the Christian Faith because it owed its very birth to that Faith. As Jaki has so elegantly revealed, science was stillborn in every ancient culture.33 In spite of some promising starts, science failed to emerge. For example, consider the decimal system (base 10) of numeration, a Hindu invention, and Euclidean Geometry, the glory of Greek deductive genius. Yet, neither was science; neither gave a handle to dealing with things in motion, the very crux of modern science. All these stillbirths – whether Indian, Babylonian, Mayan, Egyptian, Chinese, or Greek – can be traced to a faulty view of the universe. Each of these cultures embraced an organismic view of the cosmos, a view that fathomed all things in pantheistic terms as an eternal begetting (Greek: monogenes) of a divine absolute or logos (Greek for “reason”), starting from the celestial realm and emanating into the “partial disorder” of the terrestrial.34
There was one culture that got a handle on dealing with things in motion and that culture embraced and believed in a babe born in Bethlehem. This babe, according to Christian creeds, was the only-begotten (Greek: monogenes) Son of God (John 1:18). This babe was also the Logos of God (John 1:1), a Logos that was God manifested in the flesh (John 1:14). Any Greek philosopher, reading these words of the Apostle John, would not have missed this affront to pantheistic emanationism.
This challenge was based upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Logos, revealed in Scripture and in Christian creeds as fully God (very God of very God) and fully man (incarnate of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary). The theological ramifications of the revelation of God in Christ were hammered out initially by the early councils of the Church.35 The preciseness of these statements, in time, had far-reaching consequences.
Impact of the Incarnation
Rome eventually fell and the Christian West began its pioneering struggles. The followers of Christ eventually reconstructed a barbarian world making it a Christian civilization (although with faults). It was when this Christian civilization gained full access to the Greek philosophical and scientific corpus that the impact of Christ on science began to unfold.
The universe to the Christian West was a Christ-ruled universe. It was in no way an “emanation from a divine motor.” It was free from vague organismic or animistic influences (the source of a multitude of disorderly processes). This universe was ordered in accord with God’s faithful decrees (Job 38:33; Psalm 148:1-6; Jeremiah 31:35-36). Only in this universe could motion be understood properly; i.e., the conservation of momentum and where free fall was truly “free” and not governed by Aristotle’s “desire-driven” machinations.36 As we have seen, the law of inertial motion was first formulated in reference to the biblical God, the Creator of that motion, who, in the beginning, made all things in and through Christ (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16).
The createdness of all things in and through a person, the Logos of God, proved to be a certain assurance that all things cohere in their Creator (Colossians 1:17). All His works reflect a coherent wisdom because the Logos of God is also the Wisdom of God (Proverbs 8:12-36; I Corinthians 1:24; Colossians 2:3). Athanasius (ca. 293-373), who stood contra mundum (against the world) of Arian heresy (that purported Christ as not being fully God), recognized the significance of a fully rational and wise God creating a fully rational and good (interconnected and interacting) creation.37 After citing John 1:1, Athanasius described the universe as a divine hymn:
... so also the Wisdom of God, handling the universe as a lyre; ... in combining parts into wholes ... produces well and fittingly, as the result, the unity of the universe and of its order ... and He produces as the result a marvelous and truly divine harmony.38
The divine harmony of Athanasius differs antithetically (at the root level) with the Pythagorean “harmony of the spheres.” To Pythagoras (ca. 582-ca. 500 BC) and the rest of the pantheon of Greek philosophers, this harmony was not the reflection of a personal, rational Creator revealed in the flesh as the only-begotten Son of God. Although Athanasius was contra mundum (against the world of error), he was pro universo (for the universe). He was pro universo because Christ holds the universe together in His wisdom and by His power. It is this revelation of Christ, the Incarnate Christ, that is the only valid ground for a totally rational and harmonious universe, an orchestral hymn linking the realm of the celestial with the realm of the terrestrial. Contra Aristotle, who denied that any coherent law could unite these two realms, the Christian West, founded upon the reality of the Incarnation of Christ, could embrace such a union. And it eventually did in the person of Isaac Newton for he breathed deeply of such a Christian consensus, in spite of his own latent Arianism, in an English scientific atmosphere commanded by Puritan theology. This “air of truth” provided the foundation for Newton’s confidence that he could connect the falling of an apple with the motion of the moon. He made this connection mathematically in his inverse-square law39, better known as the law of universal gravitation (one law connecting two diverse realms, motion celestial with motion terrestrial).
This science of motion could not be born until the babe born in Bethlehem made His impact, until His light of truth dispelled the darkness of error. This Christ, in the fullest sense of the term, is truly the Savior of science.
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